Is there a way to get solar energy at night?

Quite frankly, no -- solar panels work only when there's sunlight to convert into electricity. Even on nights with strong moonlight or starlight, these illumination sources won't make a difference. Whether they're installed for residential or commercial use, solar panels only convert direct and indirect sunlight. So how can we outfit our solar panels to store energy after dark?

An upside to solar panel efficiency is that many models have battery storage, which preserves sunlight within its photovoltaic cells and then releases that power output at night. This battery storage can provide electricity, lead to cost savings on your electric bills, and reduce your carbon footprint. However, experts are still perfecting the technology.

The big problem with solar power is the most obvious one: The sun doesn't shine all the time. At nighttime or on cloudy days, solar cells simply can't access enough of the sun's energy. This adds to the expense of a solar power system, since it can't generate power 24/7. A cloud floats overhead and the plant is suddenly at an energy standstill, producing nothing. It also makes solar-generated power unavailable at times -- like at night, when power demand is greatest.

The solution is a simple one: Store the sun's energy so you can use it when the sun's not available. Unfortunately, implementing that solution has been extremely problematic -- until a recent breakthrough made solar battery storage a realistic option for the energy industry. And guess what? The storage material that makes the breakthrough possible is probably sitting in your kitchen right now.

The idea of storing solar energy is nothing new. People have been trying to devise a way to pause the process -- hold onto the energy in sunlight for a while before converting it to electricity -- for as long as solar power has been an electricity option. All previous attempts, though, have been prohibitively problematic.

Some have tried to store the sun's energy by using it to pump water uphill, where the energy stays until the water moves back downhill, releasing it. Compressing and then un-compressing air is another option. But both of those methods waste energy -- only about 80 percent of the solar power put in is recovered on the other end [source: Bielo].

Batteries are also fairly inefficient, making them too expensive to be a viable large-scale storage option. You can store as much energy in a coffee thermos as in a laptop battery, which costs 10 times as much [source: Wald]. Yet that's where the breakthrough comes in: Heat is easy to store.

Consider what a thermos does, storing the heat of a coffee. Since heat generates electricity in a solar-thermal power plant, so storing heat is a way to pause the process: Let the sun heat something up, keep that thing hot until the sun goes down, and then use that heat to generate the steam that turns the turbine.

Of course, as relatively easy as it is to store heat, you've got to find the right substance for a solar-power application. To store the extreme heat that runs a solar-thermal power plant, the substance has to remain stable at high temperatures -- in the area of 750 degrees F (400 degrees C) -- otherwise you'll run into problems with vaporizing and pressure changes [source: Bielo]. It's also helpful if the substance is cheap and readily available.

Enter that white, crystalline stuff in your kitchen cupboard that you probably put on your scrambled eggs, your margarita glass, and your edamame: salt. Salt melts only at very high temperatures, vaporizes at very, very high temperatures and it's available in virtually unlimited, low-cost supply. Plus, it only loses about 7 percent of the energy put into it [source: Bielo].

Actually, the first salt-storage-equipped solar power plant isn't using table salt. It's using a different salt mixture often applied as fertilizer -- a combination of sodium and potassium nitrate. The Andasol 1 power plant in Grenada, Spain, is packed with 30,865 tons (28,000 metric tons) of the stuff [source: Bielo].

The Andasol 1 plant in Spain started generating power in November 2008, and as long as the sun is shining, it operates pretty much like any other solar-thermal power grid. Sunlight strikes some sort of solar collector -- in this case, a field of parabolic-trough mirrors focused on tubes filled with oil -- and warms up. That hot oil is used to boil water, which produces steam, which spins a turbine.

How the Andasol 1 Works

It's only when the sun isn't shining that the storage system affects solar power generation. The field of solar panels at Andasol 1 is big enough to collect almost twice as much sunlight as the plant needs to operate during sunny times.

First, the extra heated oil is sent to a heat exchanger running between giant vats of molten salt. One vat holds relatively cool molten salt (about 500 degrees F or 260 degrees C). That salt is pumped into the heat exchanger, where it picks up heat from the oil. The now hotter molten salt (752 degrees F or 400 degrees C) flows into the second vat, where it waits until the sun dips behind a cloud.

Then, when the power plant needs the stored heat, the hotter molten salt is pumped back through the heat exchanger. There, it transfers its heat to the oil that will generate steam. The hotter oil travels to the power center, and the now-cooler molten salt flows back into the cooler tank. The process then starts all over.

Using salt to store the sun's heat, the plant can operate without sunlight, running almost twice as long as other solar power plants. The salt-storage setup lets Andasol 1 generate 50 percent more energy than it would without it -- 178,000 megawatt-hours of electricity [source: Fairly]. That extra generating ability lowers the overall cost of the plant's electricity. It could eventually rival the cost of natural-gas power.

This type of salt storage isn't the only design on the table for storing the sun's energy. Some plants are looking at using a more direct approach that skips the oil -- they would both collect and store the sun's heat in salt. Sand is another potential heat-storage material.

Another group has developed a system that mimics the molecular effects of photosynthesis to store solar power: It uses sunlight to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, which are then put back together in a fuel cell.

Of course! Amid all this talk about advanced solar systems, the standard solar panel gets left behind. While limited, the average solar energy system can generate electricity and store energy in a way that makes homes and businesses more energy independent.

While the battery system has a long way to go, solar panels convert enough solar electricity to remain a solid investment. Ask any solar system owners about the cost benefits, and they'll tell you: Solar panels produce more energy and save homeowners more money for every year they are installed.

For more information on solar energy storage and related topics, look over the links on the next page.